Why declaring intentions can lead to disruption
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What a sucky Monday reminded me
A note: This essay was written and scheduled before news of the invasion of Ukraine or the horrifying news about what Texas politicians are doing to transgender kids. I'll be donating 10% of the proceeds of my upcoming Inner Critic workshop and New Moon Journal Circle to ACLU Texas and Voices of Children. I'm also writing a bit over on Instagram on strategies to stay informed and involved but not overwhelmed. All my love to all of you and especially folks affected by these two events or who have loved ones who are.
Happy Sunday, Soothers. I had the most Garfield-y Monday last week...
Found out I owe a huge tax bill. Huge. HUGE. Imagine me as Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman in the shopping scene just going around screaming “HUGE!” There are upsides to quadrupling your revenue in one year and then there are downsides.
Have a significant amount of repairs and other investments coming up so this extra freaks me out.
I had ONCE AGAIN overbooked myself in work last week so was feeling super frazzled and stressed, and also self-recriminating: who I am to teach about slowing down and reducing overwhelm when I haven’t yet healed one of my deepest wounds, my over-working/over-functioning wound?? What kind of life coach AM I?!
Literally spilled my dinner all over my floor, and because I’ve been so frazzled it was basically my only grown up food in the house because I haven’t gone grocery shopping yet so yeah I had a Lara bar and some beans for dinner.
The funny thing is I JUST set the intention a few days ago of working on my abundance mindset and abundance more generally as well as slowing down — and then, all this stuff happens?
And, yup. All this stuff happens.
I have found that through every single uplevel in my life there is a significant amount of chaos or testing beforehand.
In short, I set an intention, and the universe goes, “You SURE about that? Can you hold that intention even while I throw ALL this stuff at you? What do you choose to believe when you have no external proof of this thing actually happening? Will you waver? Will you still work towards your dream, or is your dream conditional?”
And a lot of times, uh, yeah, I waver. I get scared. I'm only human.
But this time I’m working on holding the belief and sourcing the safety in myself, despite what I see happening to or around me.
I often coach my clients on this. They’ll start working with me, we’ll design a bunch of outcomes and goals, and boom, chaos (or at least some destabiliiziing stuff) takes place.
This can be pretty demoralizing because shouldn’t your efforts show up making a positive and visible forwards impact when you begin this kind of work?
And as I’ve learned, and as I live, the chaos IS your efforts showing up. At least the first part of it.
The second part is the harder part; meeting the challenges with courage and holding the belief of your original intent and dream.
What this is looking like for me in the face of that Garfield-y Monday and all that's accompanying it:
Paying the bills I owe with full confidence and gratitude, instead of terror and recrimination
Not shaming and blaming myself for spending other money
Continuing to make plans to expand and hire in my business
Telling myself every day I am proud of myself for these decisions
Telling past Catherine every day I am so proud of her and all the work she's done and choices she's made
Going on long walks every day to give myself space and grace
Checking in with my inner child to show her how we're going to plan and take care of things (we're doing some beautiful inner child work at tonight's How to Heal Your Inner Critic workshop at 7pmET — tix are still available here)
Reminding myself that, as I have written in this very newsletter before, contractions come before expansions
Tons of nervous system regulation (earthing, conscious breathing, meditation, EFT tapping, dancing)
Not fucking shrinking and playing it small and safe and scared like I have so many times in the past
Anyways, I’m right here in the work with you all, too. Sometimes some days feel like the universe is just throwing a WTF trash shower down on me and all I have to wield against it is a janky umbrella. If you ever feel that way, you’re not alone.
And if you ever want to hear me wax more about the spiritual energies and patterns of the universe and this kind of work, come to my upcoming New Moon Journal Circle March 2, or listen to my latest podcast, all about how I interweave belief, my spirituality, my understanding of how the energies of the universe work in patterns, and how you can learn them, too.
PS: A final add: I truly believe the universe is always asking ourselves to love ourselves more deeply. If you're struggling, a question that's helped me to ask myself is, "What new level am I being asked to love myself at now? To love myself in spite of?" May these serve you, too.